Friday the 13th is more than a day of fear and consternation. It’s Crossover Day in the Vermont legislature — and with it looming at the end of this week, it appears that the vast majority of bills being considered in the Statehouse may be shelved until January.
Crossover Day is the deadline for committees to get a bill out to a floor vote so that legislators in one chamber can take final action and the legislation can then cross over to the opposite chamber. If a bill does not cross over, it is dead for the rest of the session.
This Friday is the crossover deadline for all non-money bills. Middlebury College Professor Emeritus of Political Science Eric Davis believes there are a couple high-profile bills that will likely not make it out of committee. “The first is the proposal to legalize recreational use of marijuana in small amounts. The second is change to the state’s current policy regarding vaccinations which allows parents to take a so-called philosophical exemption and not vaccinate their children. On marijuana policy lawmakers in Vermont seem to want to let Colorado and Washington state have a few more years of experience before enacting something in Vermont. On vaccinations, the large majority of the population I believe would support repeal of the philosophical exemption. But the anti-vaccers, so-to-speak, are a loud and intense group in Montpelier and that bill seems like it’s not going to come out of committee.”
The state budget, Lake Champlain water quality, education and health care reform are the primary areas of legislation that many believe must pass this session. Davis says while the budget is obvious, several factors are driving passage of the others. “On health care I think the Legislature has some decisions to make regarding Vermont Health Connect and particularly whether that gets expanded. Lake Champlain - if the Legislature doesn’t do something very soon the federal government is going to step in and may impose a policy that the state doesn’t particularly like. Education finance and governance - the voters have made clear that they would like to see something done to bend the cost curve down when financing K-12 education.”
Energy legislation is a top priority for Vermont Public Interest Research Group Executive Director Paul Burns. The Vermont House passed the measure Tuesday afternoon, allowing it to move to the Senate. Work on any bill that fails to move forward can resume when legislators return in January since it is the first half of the biennium. But Burns senses some urgency this week even though some legislation can hold over. “Particularly for some of the bills that might contain new tax provisions. Whether it’s for health care or lake cleanup the conventional wisdom is that the year to do that sort of thing is in the odd year, not when you’re about to head back for re-election in front of the voters. So I think that some of those big issues they really would like to tackle this year. For others it’s true that they understand they have a whole ‘nother year to go as part of the legislative session. So it doesn’t have quite the same urgency as it probably will next year, but they want to get something done and there are a lot of problems that really need to be dealt with.”
Crossover deadline for budget and money bills is next week. Davis reports that the House Appropriations Committee target date for the budget is March 20th. It would be followed by a floor vote in the last week of March to get the bill to the Senate by April 1st.
